Quick Test: Does State Farm Bike Ad Make You See Red?

This is the stuff of what if, what if we had designed our world around bikes not cars, over the last 100 yrs bike tech would have evovled and we'd be more fit and alot less polution not to mention greenhouse gasses.

Its all Henry Ford's fault of course if he had chosen an electric motor (as most cars were electric at that time) for his assembly line idea instead of the new smelly gas engine ah where would be now with 100 yrs of EV development.

Oh and yes he does have hot legs lol

I don't get it. All I see is a guy looking pretty darned fit and saving a bunch of money. He doesn't seem to give a toss what disdain Sheila has for him judging by his response, either, and he seems genuinely happy about riding a bike to work. Watching it, I was seeing a pro-biking advert, as I had no idea State Farm was all about car insurance.

If they intended to make people NOT want to take to the streets on two wheels, I think they failed big-time. Maybe that's just because I already don't want to drive a car, any way.

This would have been a great moment to also hawk insurance for cyclists wrt injury, damage, theft, and 'Life' etc.

I'm guessing that, because it seems in America that riding a bike to work means you've probably gotten a Drunk-driving charge or are a fringe-citizen of some sort, this is simply a play on that. The fact that it is an Africa-American riding the bike in the commercial also cannot be a coincidence. I certainly think less of State Farm for airing this commercial.

Seeing this ad makes me want to call up Progressive. Seriously. I agree with Hecateus, it's time for a car insurance company to get the message, and start offering me bike insurance. Even just theft insurance would be helpful.

I saw this one on TV, and yup, made me cranky.

I've always tried to find jobs where I could bike to. Makes me feel better, saves money, and I hope helps the environment.

It's already scary on the road the way cars drive, and a pain on rainy days, I don't need to be getting social flack from statefarm to boot. Won't be buying from them.

The ad was in poor taste, but they are always going to make more money from cars than they could from bikes (more expensive vehicles with more energy behind them when things go wrong mean bigger stakes and bigger margins for the insurance companies).

As for blaming it on Henry Ford, that's a little unfair. If he went EV he wouldn't have been THE Ford we know, he would have been one of the many, as you pointed out, failed EV startups of his time. The major obstacle then and now is that fossil fuels pack a lot more energy into a much cheaper and smaller "tank" than batteries, which is the key to cheap transportation, which is what Ford was going for. Not to mention that EV Model T's would have meant coal power transfered inefficiently to lead acid batteries, so you would have had the same if not worse pollution problems coupled with an enormous heavy metals/industrial pollution problem.

I think anyone who gets upset at this really needs to loosen up in the rear area, if you know what I mean. It's a commercial, and State Farm (my family's insurance company for 30+ years, always been there for us when needed) is just trying to sell their product... insurance. I too think offering bicycle insurance would be a great idea, especially hospitalization and injury (100%), and theft.

I'm a bike commuter and all i'm wondering is, does State Farm offer bike insurance? I mean seriously. Any halfway intellegent Ad agency/Insurance company would have pitched an ad concept promoting cycling to work, so they could sell them bike insurance or something, way before this idea would come out of anyones mouth. Get with the times State Farm.

Hey State Farm,

Give away free bike theft insurance. You save money (less auto accidents) and the environment wins! Then you can run the ad about how you saved State Farm customers' premium dollars by reducing costs through your bike program!

I just have to comment on the "EV's are worse than gas cars due to more coal being burned" is total Bull, electric cars are 80% more efficient than gas cars so less fossil fuel would have been used, period. And the point was if Ford had applied his production line (which is what set us down the road we are on now) to ev's instead of gas cars we would have had a hundred years of improvement on ev technology.....

I dont know if you are all aware of this but gas car efficiency has gone DOWN over the last 100 yrs not up! AND in many large cities like London, Los Angeles and NY you actually average SLOWER speeds now than in the horse drawn carriage days...

Think about that

Their subtext is that it's humiliating to have to ride a bike to work, and that if you are riding a bike, that means you're too poor to afford gas. Certainly not the message I want to pay for when I hand money over to an insurance company. especially one that offers home owner's and renter's insurance that would insure my bike collection.

Bikes are not such a great solution because they are extremely dangerous with other cars on the road. I often ride a bike around during the summers when its warm, as I can't ride a bike in the snow, and drivers have on more than one occasion failed to notice me. I have to ride my bike paranoid in order to be safe.

So while this is the world we live in you should not single out State Farm for this ad. It is ordinary. No I don't see red, although I think those Geico caveman commercials are much better.

Makes more sense to be unhappy with State Farm for the merciless way they denied claims left and right along the Gulf Coast after Katrina. This is just a cynical way of capitalizing on current events to market themselves. The denial of claims was a deplorable way of failing on their basic business purpose and leaving thousands of people doubly devastated.

Jim is cool. Sheila, on the other hand, needs to be knocked down those stairs and told a thing or two. Shame on you Sheila, you are pure failure.

State Farm would be well placed to offer bicycle insurance, car sharing insurance, etc.

They could also have had a much softer touch with their message by offering a new driver discount for drivers who take a sharing teh road with bikes safety course. Something that teaches drivers of cars and other larger vehicles safety issues and behavior around bikes. Offer a discount on those people's car insurance.

Offer a bike theft and "driving" insurance. They'd be hip, cutting edge, and green for a car insurance company. They'd get a lot more positive feedback then.

That would be a smart market move. Not "the same old thing" which is what they seem to be working on.

Some other insurance company will come along with packages like that and eat their lunch.

I'm a bike commuter and though I thought it was a stupid add, it nothing to get huffy about. What's funny was I just saw that the guy who does the voice over for the ad (McDreamy guy) was just interviewed in a bike mag and is an avid cycler.

My first reaction upon seeing this commercial was "I wonder how long it's going to take Treehugger to pick up on this."

*new to the treehugger site, posted above as Travis, now registered officially.

Kinda veering off topic but I'll bite again if it will be permitted.

Yes EV's are quite efficient between the battery and the motor, but that's only a fraction of the story.

I'm missing my usual reference (so most of this is web based tonight) and different sources will land you at slightly different numbers but the true efficiency of an EV has to account for all the energy losses.

By my calculations, calling all fossil fuel plants in the US 40% efficient (hydro, nuclear etc as 100%), and using the numbers from the EIA site for power sources you end up with your electricity from the power plant being 57% efficient. (this is based on turbine efficiency and neglects the cost of moving fuels around, hurts fossil fuels, and nuclear)

Assume power transmission losses of 7.2% or 92.8% efficient

The charge/discharge cycle is only 66% efficient (NiMH).

High end electric motors are between 90 and 95% efficient

Drivetrains are ~95% efficient

1 x .57 x .928 x .66 x .95 x .95 = 31.5% efficient. If you live in the midwest, or anywhere else that's largely coal powered that drops to something on the order of 22%, if you live in the NW it's pretty much all clean energy and I'd call it all good (even though you loss a lot along the way)...but let’s say that the average for the US at the moment is on the order of 31-32% efficiency (relative to fuel burned).

Modern diesel engines come in at 45% before drivetrain, gasoline somewhere on the order of 30% (or 42% and 28% respectively after drivetrain), compared to our electric above that comes in at 33% on average and 23% in the coal/NG dependent states before drivetrain.

This has not yet even touched on the impact of weight on efficiency, it’s a factor (but more complicated and dependent on your driving habits) and electric cars are by definition heavier for an equivalent vehicle (battery weight vs fuel weight). This is also where you’re getting the idea that gasoline/diesel hasn’t gotten any more efficient. That couldn’t be further from the truth, the catch is that cars have gotten heavier so mpg has stagnated. Blame that on a whole range of factors from added safety features to the “need” for AC, power everything, tank like vehicle structure, etc.

I’m by no means trying to say that EV’s are bad, just that in some situations they aren’t the golden boys they are painted as. Certainly not 80% better in all cases, in some maybe if you ignore battery disposal. Pay attention to the Auto-X prize, the winner there will give you a good idea of the path of least resistance to efficiency. My money is on a diesel electric parallel hybrid (IMHO best average over the most common drive cycles), but as we all know diesel looks bad in terms of SMOG. My alma mater WWU in WA was big on CNG hybrids (I got a chance to work on a CNG prototype up there) and they are an excellent compromise when factoring in smog…unfortunately CNG is harder to make from sustainable sources.

Feel free to email me if want more info on where I'm getting my numbers, like I said I'm not an EV hater by any means, and I absolutely acknowledge that the numbers can change quite a bit depending on which source you trust. But, there's more to the lack of EV's on the road than an oil conspiracy, in a lot of cases they are simply worse for the environment, not to mention more expensive and less practical. Around town, in the right part of the country though, they can't be beat.


Sources:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency

Re-think what you think you know, bikes are very safe, we need healthy bike roadways/paths/lanes that are entirely separate from cars. W are even safe don't need bike insurance, what we need is incredibly safe bike routes, every major city should have their own bike system, with maps, routes, signs, and also public transportation that offer bicycle carrying racks, how hard is that. imagine Bike highways lit by LED lights for early morning commute and night cycling. We should look at this creatively as a collective people who would like to improve their quality of life, while getting in shape, while greatly doing their part on living a sustainable beautiful life, while having fun, while saving money. The oil and fossil fuel co2 spewing car as a whole is a huge problem, what it also does is burden hard working families who have no healthy alternative choice to travel to and from work that makes sense or bc biking to work may be dangerous, WHY? not bc biking is not safe, give me a break, biking is healthy, fun and totally safe, but BC there aren't super efficient and safe Bicycle Roadways Networks ....I would be willing to have some of my tax paying money go towards sustainable and quality of life Innovative solutions like a National or worldwide bicycle roadways network. The last thing we need is mandated bike insurance, what a joke, are you going to make me register my skateboard too, what a crock, in the mean time im riding my bike in the bike lanes all smiles.

Agreed bike to work insurance would be a great thing to have, does anyone offer it at the moment?

Kinda veering off topic but I'll bite again (sorry if it’s a double post but I think my last attempt got botched).

Yes EV's are quite efficient between the battery and the motor, but that's only a fraction of the story.

Call fossil fuel plants 40% efficient at the turbine and if you take the national percentages for energy sources you get it bumped up to 57% efficiency for electricity leaving the plant

Assume power transmission losses of 7.2% or 92.8% efficient

The charge/discharge cycle is only 66% efficient.

High end electric motors are between 90 and 95% efficient

Drivetrains are ~ 95% efficient

.57 x .928 x .66 x .95 x .95 = 31.5% efficient. Coal only areas drop to 22% (replace the .57 with .40)

Modern diesel engines come in at 45% before drivetrain, gasoline somewhere on the order of 30% (or 42% and 28% respectively after drivetrain), compared to our electric above that comes in at 33% on average and 23% (before drivetrain) in the coal/NG dependent states (70.1% of US energy).

EV’s have their place but as I see the numbers they are not always the clear winner, certainly not 80% better across the board. It depends on your area, your driving habits, and your ability to handle the associated increase in heavy metals waste. I love EV’s as short commuter’s in the right state, but they are typically less efficient for long hauls or in fossil fuel states.

Sources:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency
*sorry for all the wikipedia, lost my standby text book recently

Dreama - with all due respect, if you build a second rate home in a hurricane zone, I'm not sure you deserve to be bailed out.

Jim is hot. And since we rely on hot people to set social trends, I hope State Farm will use him again in the follow-up ads where he smiles and tells us how great it is saving with State Farm's new "Bikers' Auto Insurance Plan". With this plan, you get bicycle accident and theft coverage, and you auto insurance is still cheaper because most of your commutes are by bike. Sheila: "Hey Jim, does State Farm offer tandem insurance."

The purpose of advertising is to fool consumers. I wish that the media spent more time examining advertising to uncover meaning. But the media industry is supported by advertising. The media industry is also in the business of fooling people. Will State Farm and their ad agency take seriously objections to this ad and pull the ad? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, they don't care because any publicity is "good" publicity. This ad is getting free airtime because of the controversy. They are all patting each other on the back at State Farm, and the ad agency.

With the money I save on my car insurance [because I live in the outskirts of Orlando, it is NECESSARY to have a car, or atleast a scooter [i'm working on it!]] I can buy a better bike!!!!!

;]

or i could move central to the places i work/shop and bike all the time. hm.

Yes, this ad is all about "oh, it's so humiliating to bike to work, but I *have* to, because gas is over $3.50 a gallon! Nevermind that it's the third cheapest country in the world for gasoline."

#1: When it comes down to it, Americans will drive to work even when gas is double what it is today. Just like the rest of the world does. Because just like the rest of the world, Americans would really rather not suffer the weather.
#2: It seems like every company in the auto industry is willing to give you a break on how much you pay for gas, just to keep you driving. Jeep and Chrysler will give you a year's worth of free gas if you buy a new car from them. State farm will cut your insurance rates. The government will cut gas taxes. It sort of makes you wonder what's up with that.
#3: You want to stick it to the man? The oil companies for "gouging" you at the pump? The government for taxing you? The car companies for lying to you? The insurance companies for pretending to cover you? Stop driving. Take the bus (and demand better bus service while you're at it). Or, you can see #4.
#4: How about a nice cup of shut the fuck up?

It funny I own a car and drive it about once or twice a month. I bike to the Metro everyday and my boss even arranged a spot in our office supply closet for my bike. Ads like this make it seem that I am wrong in some way. Since my job pays for mass transit I spend nothing on commuting. State Farm (and others) make me into a freak, but my friends and coworkers think it's cool. If society had arranged itself around mass transit, I wouldn't need a car. My parents live far off the train lines and the buses don't go out to them on the weekends. Ins. companies and so many others have screwed up the mental attitude of people. I so wish old train lines would not be made into bike trails but have train lines restored.

Well, I am a 37 year old professional (dentist) and I rode my bike to the bus station this morning (8 minute ride), loaded my bike on the front of the bus, and then took the bus for 15 minutes to my office. And this is all in Fresno, a very unfriendly public transportation city!

We have it wrong. Cars need to be considered ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION! We all need to slow down, grab the bike, bus pass, and go. ABsolutely, save money and benefit your health. Win win!

I saw this commercial and found it to be kind of dumb and cliche, but it isn't anything new. Nobody has pointed out the E-surance commercials where they claim to be environmentally friendly because they are an online company. Those commercials are pretty in your face about the whole thing and paint the "other companies" as being anti-environment and E-surance as being a treehugging company. This commercial on the other hand is just kind of dumb and not worth the effort, but isurance companies are big faceless entities that are easy to hate on.

As far as Bike insurance goes, it sounds like a great idea, but in reality it wouldn't work. There are a lot of questions that would need to be addressed. How much would a consumer be willing to pay for their premium? How much is your bike worth? How would you rate customers? What sort of deductible would companies charge? How do you provide medical coverage

There are too many variables and many of them are not quantifiable, nor would it work as a business. Auto insurance requires that you have a driver's license, nothing like that exists for bikes. Also, auto insurance is primarily liability insurance meant to protect other people from the damage you may cause with your big hunk of metal. 1st Party protection coverages (Personal Injury Protection, Comprehensive and Collision, things that repair your damages even if you cause the accident) are not required and can be waived (at least in the state of WA). All of these issues raise considerable obstacles and make the idea of "bike insurance" pretty hard to imagine becoming a reality.

With that said, for anybody with a decent bike I would recommend either covering it under your renters insurance (check your deductible as the minimum is usually $500) or get a policy to cover the bike only (like you would a diamond ring). Single item policies are typically inexpensive and would provide relief in the case of theft.

Biking also saves on health care costs... perhaps we can save gas and health care costs by biking... and that will really allow us to retire from those corporate jobs much earlier! Then we wont even need a car... or a bike if we don't want!

Way to go! Lets make fun of the bike guy. Lets all be cool and drive our cars to work. You know what would be great if I could figure out a way to drive 2 cars at the same time to work! Then I would be sure to be cool.
This ad is just obnoxious, thanks state farm!

Well, I know what insurance company I'll never consider or recommend to friends!

I am a 29 year-old professional living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I PROUDLY ride my bike and the bus to work. I agree with RF, cars should be considered alternative transportation.

Wake up, State Farm! Peak oil is here! Be creative and forward-thinking about how you make your money ... and don't do it by putting down a savvy, eco-conscious (and hot) cyclist.

We need more Jims in the world. A big fat truck gulping from its tank of dinosaur wine does not a real man make.

Here's a place to leave comments with state farm.
Intelligent and civil!

https://online.statefarm.com/apps/contactSF/pages/commentsSuggestions.asp

I missed the ad, they've taken it offline, but I still want to watch it!

Did anybody save it eslewhere?